We’ve apparently reached the part of the 2012 election where all the racist assheads emerge from the shadows in full bigoted regalia.
While not surprising, it does just make us….well, what? What does this particular demonstration make us feel? This may seem like an easy question, but maybe it isn’t so easy. Is it enraging? Sure. But by this point it’s also so cliché and mundane that it’s almost like expecting the jerk after the tap on the knee. It’s not that we thought these folks went anywhere after the 2008 election. No, of course not. Due to the Tea Party, which has been noticeably absent during much of the 2012 campaign, we saw the many, many, racist signs and slogans and t-shirts and whatever the first time around. So, where has this guy been?
We think just waiting for the right time, and the right moment in the campaign to trot out his so very clever t-shirt just to get a reaction. And mostly, well, I’ll speak for myself. I’m just bored.
We know you exist. The president knows you exist. No one is shocked. You, sir, are at best a t-shirt, a headline of the day. To talk about you at length individually gives you more attention and significance than you actually deserve. Yet, you’ll get what you want. However, what’s more important is how the actual candidate you’re supporting thinks of racism rearing its head in his midst.
A Romney spokesperson commented that the shirt showcased Friday at a Mitt Romney rally was “reprehensible and has no place in this election.”
Not good enough. While we the general public can regard this guy’s antics as the desperate act that goes along with a racist not getting what he wants, as the evolutionarily-challenged hive mind of the ridiculous, and the frightened clinging to an archaic institution that devalues growth and change — all reviewed from the comfort of our sofas — someone running for president of these United States needs to be able to zero in and say in person how this is not a view he condones or accepts no matter how enthusiastic the voter or need for his base’s support — that is if he sees himself as a real leader. John McCain for all his faults was able to do this, he recognized the danger and how vicious vitriolic racism can spring forth and infect others left unchecked, and his part in being complicit in the spreading. He’d had enough and said so publicly and directly, and it was one of the only things he did during the entire campaign that made any sense.
Mitt Romney is no John McCain.
